


'Nea

by JackShit



Series: Connected Works [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abuse, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Aranea's backstory, BAMF Aranea Highwind, Blood, Child Abuse, Death in Childbirth, Drug Use, During Canon, Origin Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Aranea Highwind, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Suicide, Tags May Change, Trauma, what I needed in the game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2020-09-28 16:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackShit/pseuds/JackShit
Summary: She grows up with the colour red.





	1. Innocence Bleeds the Darkest Red

_ **** _

_ “‘Nea~,” a child’s voice, sickly sweet and twice as soft calls to her. She barely hears it over the blood roaring in her ears, over the sensation of falling. “‘Nea…” _

_ She screams, falling forever, reaching for ground she’ll never hit. Stomach dropping, she plummets, down, down, down- _

_ “‘Nea!” _

Aranea, age twelve, shoots out of her bed, breathing heavily. A small body clings to her waist, repeating her name over and over. She hugs back, trying to will her hands not to shake.

“It’s okay,” she soothes, “what happened?”

The little girl curls up at her side, “havin’ a nightmare ‘Nea.”

“What was it about?” She asks, pulling the covers back up over the two of them.

“No, you has one,” she pokes Aranea’s side.

“ _ Had  _ one,” Aranea corrects. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. What did you dream about?”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No. Tell me stories, ‘Nea.”

“About what?”

“Other places, not home.”

“Like Lucis?” Her brow furrows.

“Tell me ‘bout the prince, ‘Nea,” the little girl looks up with wide, star-filled eyes.

“Not much to tell,” Aranea says, “he’s two years old.”

“But he’s a prince!” The girl insists, then gasps like she’s just realized something, “is he gonna find a princess?”

She sighs, “one day, maybe he’ll marry a nice rich girl from Tenebrae, like Lady Lunafreya-”

“‘Nea,” the girl whines, “that’s boring.”

“Or maybe he’ll fall for his best friend before he goes to see her,” Aranea muses, “how’s that sound?”

The girl nods, “and what’ll her name be?”

Aranea looks at the girl so different to herself, “how about… Elora.”

The girl giggles, “no, ‘Nea. That’s my name.”

“Well you could meet him, once we get outta here,” Aranea squeezes the girl to her side, “we’re going to get on a train and take it all the way to Insomnia.”

“No, we can’t,” Elora reaches and grabs at Aranea’s messy blonde hair, “princes don’t like us.”

Before Aranea can bite out that ‘no one likes us’, a loud banging comes at their door.

“Goer te fuck te sleep,” a voice slurs at them, Niflheimian accent highlighted by alcohol, “won’ sleep wif all yer natterin’.”

Neither of them respond or make a noise until footsteps retreat back to the kitchen.

“Go to sleep Ella,” Aranea whispers, “I’ll turn the radio on low for you.”

“‘Nea…” 

“We will get out,” Aranea promises, voice hard, “but sleep first, alright?”

____-____

Aranea never considered her ‘story’ to start until she turned fourteen. Before that her life was unimportant, she never meant anything to anyone, except that one little girl who she’d sometimes wake with nightmares.

Back then, she never thought she’d be part of a story. Not really, anyway. Desperation-fueled day dreams in the waking hours before dawn never counted. She was never hopeful for the future, she never had enough faith in herself that she could make it happen. No, she was always just an orphan living in a girl’s home, under the care of an abusive old man she had learned to fear.

When Aranea turned fourteen, she decided she never wanted to feel that fear again. If she had to pick one moment in time, she’d say that was the day she became something. Even if that something was bad, she would rarely regret any choice she made. But first, she was four years old.

____-____

She never knew her parents. Or, at least, doesn’t remember them. Maybe they were kind, cruel, strict, loving. It never mattered, they died two days before her birthday. 

They died bleeding out in the snow. Their souls left bodies that almost no one could recognize once the daemons were done with them. Her aunt knew who they were. Her aunt cried over their mangled bodies in the morgue, cursing up and down and telling the air that it was a better fate than becoming the monster.

She would never look at Aranea in the face.

“She looks like her,” she’d sob, “get this child  _ away _ from me- she looks like her.”

Two days later, on her fourth birthday, she was dropped off at the nearest girl’s home. Baby’s Breath orphanage was beautiful, painted bright blues and smelling like candy. A woman greeted her at the door, wearing a cheerful combination of blues and yellows. She gave Aranea a big hug.

“Sweetheart,” she had said, voice smoother than honey, “oh my, you are simply precious. Let’s get you cleaned up, hm?”

She took Aranea by her hand, and she watched the agent in charge of her turn and walk out the door.

Soon enough, Aranea was bundled in all blue, washed and fed. The woman took her to her room, several other young girls already waiting under the covers of their beds.

The room itself was plain, nothing as frilly as the entrance, kitchen or bathrooms. But it was cozy, that much she remembers. The baby-blue walls decorated with fluffy white clouds, and the pristine white bed sheets made a good combination that was pleasing for a child’s eyes.

The woman- and gods, Aranea wishes she could remember her damn name- tucked her into bed, and pushed her choppy hair away from her forehead, smiling softly.

“My dear,” she whispered, “I hope you will be very happy here. I know you will do great things.”

Aranea thought so too, even if that night she’d kept everyone away with her crying. Even if she didn’t fully understand why she was here, where her parents went, or why her aunt had locked herself in her room and made one loud banging noise before the crying stopped.

She didn’t yet understand the colour red.

But she would.

____-____

“You’ve only been here a few weeks, I know,” the woman would say to her, “but you must respect our rules, dear.”

“Why?” Aranea glared at the woman, “I want home, not you.”

“Oh, baby, I understand. But you won’t get anywhere if you don’t listen.”

“No one likes me.”

The woman picked her up and kissed her on the nose. “No one likes you because you’re treating them all wrong.”

“They never  _ listen  _ to me,” tears ran down her face, and she wiped snot from her nose.

“Make them respect you first,” the woman said, words that Aranea couldn’t forget if she tried. “Make them take you seriously.”

And the woman would spin her ‘round and send her off to her room. Aranea doesn’t know why she remembers this woman better than her parents, yet remembers her parents’ names and not hers. Aranea doesn’t know why this woman taught these lessons to a child, even if she had no expectation that she would be listened to. Sometimes she wishes she had more time with this woman, if only to pick her brain.

____-____

“You know your last name,” the woman once told her, “Cadere, it means ‘falling’.”

“In what language?” Aranea wants to ask her, now.

____-____

There’s a man at the home. He’s kind, well mannered. He’s married to the woman, and as much as Aranea tries, she isn’t able to forget his name.

He shakes her hand the second day she’s there, introducing himself.

“Call me Rurik,” he nods his bald head, “welcome to my home.”

He’s so fatherly, for three years he’s patient with every child. He’s well-tempered in every situation.

By the time Aranea is seven, his eyes are so bloodshot they may as well be solid red. She hears the other children, sometimes. They whisper about drugs, about death and mourning. After a week without the woman, Aranea thinks she knows who he’s mourning.

She’s starting to wish she didn’t know so many words for ‘loss’.

____-____

“Teach me how to shoot a gun,” she requests one afternoon. It was the first anniversary of her family’s death, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the sound a gun makes.

Aranea’s seen it on TV, on the news. Rurik and his wife never censored that channel, and neither did Niflheim. She would watch with wide eyes as the Imperial troops would valiantly take down countless Glaives from Lucis. She watched them protect their home, and listened close to how it sounds.

It’s certainly not the first time Aranea has heard a gun. At five years old, she wondered who her aunt was trying to protect.

The woman was quick to answer. “We don’t have guns in our home, sweetheart.”

“How do you protect us, then?” Aranea asked, staring at the woman with narrowed eyes.

“You don’t need guns to protect people,” Rurik said gently. He looked concerned.

“You do,” she insisted, “or Lucis is gonna get us- daemons too.”

“Shush, child,” the woman smiled at her, “you are safe here.”

“You can’t protect me if you don’t have guns,” Aranea crossed her arms, pouting. “I’ll die.”

“No you will not,” frowned Rurik, “violence is not the answer.”

“No.”

“You don’t need to hurt people, ‘Nea,” the woman amended, with a quick glance at her husband, “it isn’t ‘you or the bad guys’. We need to try and live together, in peace.”

“What about Lucis?” She objected, child’s brain trying to untangle a web of knots.

“That- that’s different,” the woman said weakly. Rurik nods, bearing more confidence.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, honey. You’ll understand someday.”

____-____

Aranea dreamed of falling.

Whatever monsters may haunt her nightmares, her fear of falling was by far the worst.

When she was six years old, she started having dreams of the woman. She was always being tossed off the top of the home by someone she couldn’t see. Aranea could never catch her, and soon enough, she was falling too. Her stomach would drop, she’d get dizzy, and more and more frequently, she’d wake up vomiting. 

For the other girls, of course, this was horrifying. They would all be driven out by the smell, and be constantly angry with her because no one got any sleep. Eventually, Aranea was moved to a spare room on her own. This room had no colour in it, and she liked it that way. She wanted to draw all over it, make it her own.

When it came down to it, the doctors couldn’t really help her. They decided on giving her light sedatives in hopes that it would prevent her from dreaming.

She lasted all of two weeks on them before they stopped working in the way they were supposed to. They started making her antsy, tired, fatigued. Every emotion would seem to be on a hair-trigger, and then disappear all at once, and she’d be left despondent.

It was Rurik who insisted on getting her off the sedatives.

It was Rurik who suggested that the room become hers permanently. 

____-____

She would paint the room red, she decided. It already covered her hands, and she slowly dragged her palm across the white walls. When that was done, she used her other hand to paint an ‘X’. She continued to draw her fingers all around the room, and when they would run out of red, she simply dipped them into the wet fabric of her shirt and continued her work.

____-____

The other girls don’t like her. They tell her that she’s bossy, cruel and weird.

She never said anything back, only would stare at them with a dead expression. Aranea heard them whisper things, they’d say she looks deader than her parents.

She grows tired of the room quieting whenever she enters. 

“Listen to me!” She’d scream, “I’m  _ alive _ !”

They never did, they would laugh at her instead. Or get scared and run away from her, crying. Then the woman would have to whisk Aranea away, sobbing hysterically. Trying to tell someone,  _ anyone, _ to let her in. 

Make the pain stop, please.

____-____

The woman stopped worrying about her after she turns six. The woman stopped worrying about anything, at that time. Her sharp blue irises always looked black, and red marks tracked up her arms, little dots that Aranea liked to trace with her fingers when the woman would fall asleep on the couch. She wouldn’t dream these nights, only wake after someone had moved her back to her own room. Sometimes the woman made her way to Aranea’s room, collapsing in the bed and murmuring nonsense. Aranea would run chubby fingers through short, greasy hair.

“Mama…” she breathed one night, half asleep.

“Baby baby baby,” the woman chuckled, “welcome world dead baby, dead mama. Dead sister.”

“You’re scaring me,” Aranea told her, “wake up.”

“Baby. Baby babe. Do you know what pregnant is, ‘Nea. It’s baby.”

She was a little confused, but felt a pang of excitement. She loved babies, they never looked at her strange like older children.

Then Rurik would open the door and carry the woman out without a word, leaving Aranea in the dark, red spots on the pillow where his head was. It never bothered her, they were always washed in the mornings after that. 

Aranea would ask Rurik why the woman was being so silly all the time. Rurik wouldn’t answer her.

She didn’t see the woman for eight months after that last time. The woman stayed in a locked room where the occasional screams could be heard. Rurik would always emerge looking so tired. Sometimes he’d have scratches down his neck, arms and face. He’d let Aranea use red marker to turn the scars into flower stems, drawing roses and tulips. He’d watch her make delicate lines over the rough cuts, chugging a beer all the while.

“Beautiful,” he’d tell her.

She didn’t want it to be beautiful, beautiful things are never listened to. On her seventh birthday she sat and drew thorns on him instead. She would watch them turn into corpses, and started to wish for them to be beautiful again.

The first week after her birthday, she opened the woman’s door. Picking locks was easy, and she wanted to comfort Rurik as he wailed behind the door. She pondered why she could only hear him, and not the woman’s usual scratchy voice, or even the shattering screams that were happening not moments ago.

Aranea peeked through the door, letting the light shine through the dark room.

____-____

Red is not a nice colour.

But the world is not very nice, so maybe it works. Maybe the sky should be red, and not the sort of blue you can only see in ancient oil paintings. Where it’s so light and faded it becomes mystical.

Red is not beautiful, and Aranea decides she doesn’t want to be either.

____-____

Aranea earns a place when she turns eight. She gets the displeasure of witnessing Rurik’s descent down his darkened spiral staircase. There came a night where he, drunker than he’s ever been, takes a child who had dropped a fork at dinner by the arm and hauled her up roughly. The girl yelped as she was picked up, trying to lean away as his alcohol-scented breath reached her nose.

“Don’t. Dr-op. Shit,” he growls, voice slurred.

“Put her down!” Aranea shouts at him, rising from where she sat beside him.

He outright snarled at her, letting the girl go. Aranea barely registered her falling to the floor with tears running down her face. 

“You what?” His hand slotted around her neck, “you what?”

“Stop,” she gasped, feelings hurting more than anything, “papa-”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me that,” he pushed her away by her neck, eyes snapping the the child in the booster seat. He whipped around and stumbled back into his bedroom. 

The ten girls remaining at the orphanage were silent for a moment, all a little too shocked for words. Then, the girl who was grabbed at first jumps up and gives Aranea a hug.

“Thank you ‘Nea,” she whispers. And just like that, she was not only part of the group, but a leader, a protector. Aranea becomes the one who stood up and took punishment, who comforted the other girls when she wasn’t there to defend them.

She became a mother and friend to them that day. 

She made her own life hell in the process.

____-____

Fire roared and pour from the buildings in an inferno to rival Ifrit himself. Everything Aranea ever knew had gone up in flames, and it wasn’t even her fault this time. 

____-____

“Rurik?” Aranea asked, peeking through the door, searching for the woman.

He looked up, face twisted into something unrecognizable. The light from outside the dark room made a line down is tear-streaked face and landed on the bundle in his arms.

“Rurik?” She asked again, opening the door wider. He stood and handed Aranea the bundle with little care.

“Take it,” he snarls, “it killed my wife.”

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door so Aranea is left in the dark holding a now crying and strangely wet blanket. Turning back around, Aranea turned on the light, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The bundle in her arms is wet because it’s soaked through with blood, the blanket is, at least. It’s face- and Aranea sees it’s a baby now- seems to have been wiped clean of anything. It’s covering her shirt, and it’s now sticking uncomfortably to her skin. Aranea turned to put the baby down on the bed, and maybe take off her now sticky top. 

And, oh, there was someone already there-

“Mama!” She screeched, putting the baby at the foot of the bed with haste. She crawled onto the bed and shook the woman’s shoulder. Her eyes were closed, and Aranea wished she could say she looked peaceful. But no, even to a child at seven years old, she still looked  _ dead _ . Blood soaked Aranea’s knees from where she knelt beside the woman. “Mama,” she cried, “wake up, mama.”

The woman stayed where she was, and Aranea whimpered as she clung to the woman’s middle. She was covered in blood, she knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She waited for Rurik to come back and take the baby, but two hours past and he never came. So Aranea got up, snot mixing with blood as it dripped down her face. She picked up the baby and took it to her own room. 

And she painted the walls.


	2. Born In the Arms of the Fire and Crawl From the Ashes

Aranea wasn’t entirely sure how to care for a baby without a mother. She wrapped it in one of her clean shirts instead of the soiled blankets, shedding her own clothes in favour of her most fuzzy blanket and pyjama pants. She crawls into bed and hugs the child close to her. Niflheim is cold, she thinks, the baby must be feeling that after being warm for so long.

“You’re a baby girl,” Aranea told the baby, “I think I get to name you.”

The child had no objection to this, silently waving tiny fists in the air, so Aranea continued.

“I don’t know what your mama wanted to name you,” she frowned, feeling familiar pain in her chest, “I don’t know many names.”

She thought hard for a moment, then her face lit up, “Elora,” she decided, “she was a Glaive on TV- I love that name.”

Later, Aranea might regret the choice when the child would ask who she was named after. A dead soldier of the enemy kingdom, turned daemon and used in Niflheim experiments.

Rurik found her sleeping with the baby on her chest a few hours later, he woke her by taking Elora from her, and she’s jolted by the sudden lack of heat.

“Rurik, no,” she murmured.

When he looked at her, she felt her heart sink. His expression was broken and devoid of any love that had been on it before. She felt like that was the moment, right then, where she had lost him.

“Rurik,” she tried again.

“She needs a father,” he said, “stay out of this.”

He noticed the smears all over the walls when he said this, and his eyes narrowed to slits.

“Sick child,” he muttered before shutting the door and leaving her in the dark.

____-____

If a father is what Elora needs, it isn’t what she ends up with.

What she gets is an orphanage with eleven other girls, ranging in age from six to thirteen. What she gets is an abusive birth father, and a war she never wanted.

What she gets is hiding under Aranea’s bed. At least, that’s what Aranea told her, when a Lucian raid kicked down the doors of their home and left an emptiness that set the last nail in the coffin. The two of them huddled there, the silence filled only with authoritative shouts and the occasional whispered promise of candy if Elora would please just stay quiet-

Rurik wasn’t even home. He didn’t even notice the missing three girls.

If he can’t protect them, then who will?

Aranea bought her first gun at thirteen.

But she wouldn’t kill anyone yet. She was right, she thinks, remembering the pleas of those girls before they were taken as she slid stolen money over the counter, diplomacy doesn’t do shit.

She remembers walking out of that shop, not even bothering to conceal her new gun and ammo. Who would blame her for having it, anyway? Everyone knows that Lucians are on the prowl to ‘rehabilitate’ Niff kids. 

Two boys saw her, then.They looked at her with raised brows. They wore dark grey official-looking uniforms with the Niff flag over the heart.

“Bit young,” one said, with an accent that told her he’s been raised on the far outskirts of Niflheim. 

Aranea bared her teeth. She’s seen what boys do to girls in the dark parts of this city.

“Fighter, are you?” He tried again, and his friend nudged him in the ribs. “Shove off, Kincaid.”

“What do you want?” She remembers asking, trying not to panic.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Fourteen,” she lied, young enough at the time to think a year’s difference would mean anything to these men. She nodded her head for him to speak.

“That’s young,” said the other, younger-sounding boy. 

“Yeah, well, here’s our number, miss,” the older one handed her a plain card with red printing as the title, “we here are recruiting for the army. We can’t join yet, but we’re doing our part. I’m off to fight next year, but call me when you’re eighteen, and I’ll get you some connections, yeah?”

Now, she thinks, this might have been the most important exchange of her life.

She still has the card.

_ RECRUITMENT FOR THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS NIFLHEIM ARMY _

_ Please call the following numbers to apply and be recruited _

_ -0 339-(909)-178990 _

_ For the ARMY SECRETARY DIRECTLY _

_ Or call _

_ -0 344-(390)-102938 _

_ For Biggs Callux and Wedge Kincaid _

_ Official army recruiters in search of young fighters in the war against the unjust Lucius  _

She’s so glad she saved it from the fire.

Oh, sentiment.

____-____

Aranea loved watching the news. With a war going on, it was never dull for a fourteen-year-old girl to sit in front of the television and absorb the evil and gruesome ways of the world. Sometimes, when Rurik wasn’t being too bad, he’d even sit and watch it with her. 

But her favourite part was always the prince.

So small, chubby and innocent. The last time Aranea had seen him on TV was on his fourth birthday, where he blew out his bright blue birthday candle with a grin and a little giggle.

The news network said it symbolized snuffing out the flame of the Niflheim Empire.

Rurik called him a spoiled fucking brat.

Aranea didn’t know what to call him at the time, but she could have never imagined herself calling him King.

____-____

A full month passed.

A month of peace, where Rurik is calm, and looked like he’s not been drinking so much lately. 

Elora, at seven years old, was snarky but mostly well-behaved. The other girls followed an almost fifteen-year-old Aranea’s directions like her word was law.

There’s always a ‘but’ to these kind of things.

It’s the thirtieth of September when Aranea’s life starts.

It was not her first encounter with Lucians, but it was her worst.

This time, they’d brought young trainees with them to get the kids out of the orphanage. One of them had detonated a fire bomb, maybe by accident, maybe because he held suck rage for anyone Niff.

Didn’t matter. The fire started in the kitchen, she was told. Rurik didn’t wake up until the fire had completely covered his bedroom door, and by then it was too late. When it has made its way up to Aranea’s room, she could hear it.

Roaring, screaming. The screaming of girls in the other room. The sound of her shade of red.

Aranea had just enough time to grab Elora, and bolted outside.

The Lucians had cleared out already, and a few neighbors to the orphanage were peeking from their shabby windows. 

Aranea placed a sleepy and confused Elora down, before making a decision.

She sprinted back to the orphanage.

And got all eleven out before the fire made the entire house collapse.

Careful, baby-blue walls reduced to blackened ashes touched by the destructive red of the fire.

The news hailed her a hero. Her sisters thanked her with their cries and embraces. Elora clung to her side with a grip that not even fire could break.

Rurik was dead. Rurik is dead.

Now she can begin her life.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a shorter work, as you can see. I really wish it was longer, but the poetic style at the beginning is better short, because it feels like impact. Anyhoo, I will no longer carry on with this style, because I want to symbolize the change in her story from an obscure and treacherous childhood to something clear and sharp. This will include more dialogue and character thought more like my other works. Thank you for reading!!!!


	3. Oracle Card

Aranea has been sitting here for a while, on the edge of the water.

She watches the sun come up, and it shines warm on her hollow face. The years have not been kind, but Aranea had been worse to them. Despite it all, here she is. On the same waters as always.

A hand rests on her shoulder, and she only half-turns at the touch.

“Company?” Asks a voice.

She doesn’t say anything, only turns back. The two men behind her sit on either side. One takes off his shoes and socks and lets his feet hang in the Vesperpool waters, like her. 

The other, after a moment, does the same.

She revels in their presence, her best men.

Good friends.

Biggs and Wedge.

She puts an arm over either of their shoulders, and knows that they are smiling too.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts!  
\- The name 'Rurik' comes from a root word meaning 'red'  
\- Baby's breath is actually a poisonous flower  
Thanks for reading!!!!!!


End file.
